And so, the latest fire-storm in the autism blogosphere continues to rage. If you’re unaware of the story I’ll offer a brief recap (as unbiased as I can make it) before trying to offer up some commentary.
Briefly, JB Handley of Generation Rescue bought the domains supportvaccination.com, oracknows.com and autismdiva.com. Why? I don’t really know. On a practical level they can’t be doing him much good at all so one is left to consider the possibility that he did it as either a joke or to be spiteful. I sincerely hope that the team who is working on his search engine marketing hasn’t recommended that he does stuff like this as if they are then they’re moving him into the realms of what is termed as ‘black hat SEO’ – this refers to doing lots of bad stuff that is against acceptable internet policy to get a good rank on a search engine results page. The penalties for this can be severe if search engines catch you at it and include blacklisting the sites in question and terminating any associated AdWords accounts. From what I know of JB he loves to push the envelope a bit so I wouldn’t be surprised if he is doing this. He is playing with more fire than I think he knows about though.
Anyway, the unsurprising upshot of this is that most people on ‘his’ side of the debate think that a) his methods are questionable but seeing as he’s promoting such an important message the ends justify the means or b) that its downright hilarious. People on ‘my’ side of the debate (please note by using the phrase ‘my side’ I’m not assuming ownership of it) think that a) its all very childish and a bit sad or b) that what he’s doing is tantamount to willfully misleading people.
What are the definite results of JB’s actions? Well, he’s polarised two sides that were beginning to listen to each other a little better. He’s created a new battlefront where none existed before and he’s upset people.
Lets look at JB’s sides claims that even though his methods are questionable that its OK as the message he’s relating is so important the end justifies the means.
First, that is a very dangerous argument to apply to anything. If we call ourselves a society that has a moral base then ‘the ends justify the means’ is at best, ambiguous as a reason.
Secondly, lets look closely at what JB’s message actually is to see if it is indeed justifiable to use methods such as these. Lots of people, particularly JB’s supporters either don’t know or seem intent on ignoring JB’s message. It is this: autism is mercury poisoning. Not _may be_ , not _in some cases_ , not _might be triggered by_ but simply *is*. Now and forever. This is an absolutist position and its the main thing about Generation Rescue that I believe it is imperative to challenge. Why? Because autism is *not* only mercury poisoning. The vast majority of the information on the GR site revolves around the idea that thiomersal in vaccines causes autism. Lets leave the debate as to the scientific validity of that belief to one side for now. I’m quite happy to entertain the possibility that he may well be right. I’m equally happy with the science that as of this time, states that he is not. For my argument – its irrelevant. The fact is that even if JB is right and thiomersal does cause autism _it is not the *sole* cause of autism_.
Big deal say people – why does that matter? It matters because if that viewpoint comes to be accepted fact then the standard treatment for autism will become chelation. And seeing as it is a verifiable scientific fact that autism existed _long_ before thiomersal was ever used this would mean that there were a very large number of autistic children undergoing chelation totally unnecessarily. Question: Is it stupid or clever to subject children to unnecessary medical procedures?
The irony of this message is that it is a standard complaint of the mercury = autism belief system that they couldn’t get their Doctors to look beyond their narrow treatment options. This is _exactly_ what will happen should mainstream medicine ever accept the GR viewpoint that autism is mercury poisoning to the exclusion of everything else.
Let me reiterate once more – I have no issue with any group that calls for more investigation into the use of thiomersal in vaccines and that I’m glad that it is no longer in vaccines. I also fully accept that there are occasions that vaccines have damaged children. I also fully accept that mercury is a known neuro-toxin. What I do not want however, is for my daughters treatment to be a) enforced and b) an unnecessary and dangerous procedure when there is no basis for such absolutism.
So I ask you again Dear Reader – is JB’s absolutist message so good that it justifies his actions? Lets not forget that his actions also include name-calling (JB referred to friends of mine as ‘trailer dwelling coo-coo’s’ and me personally as a ‘wanker’ – a phrase for the non Brit-slang understanding amongst you that means that JB believes I masturbate to excess – roughly equitable to ‘jerkoff’ in US parlance I believe). This is as well as buying up domains that belong to sites that disagree with him.
Many claim that JB has apologised (although I fail to see where he apologised to me) and thus should be forgiven. I agree and disagree with that. I agree that for the debate to progress we all need to forgive and move on. However, this is not a one-off circumstance for JB. This is his MO. At some point, we have to stop making allowances and start holding people to account.
That said, up until this incident, I believed JB’s latest apology was sincere. I still hope it was.
People have also referred to JB’s behaviour as a bull-in-a-china-shop and expressed admiration for his go-get-em approach. I can’t see how such an approach is particularly admirable. Bulls loose in china shops breaking everything indiscriminately and certainly I feel less sure of the shaky common ground that had just started to be secured between the two sides. Lets also not forget _my_ message: that autism is not solely thiomersal poisoning and that bulls loose in _that_ particular china shop run the risk of doing very great damage to the delicate objects inside it.
Now lets move on to the point about upset. People from JB’s side of the debate cannot seem to understand why this action has upset Camille so much. As she is very much smarter than me she doesn’t need me to speak for her but I do wish to add my opinion as to why whats happened might cause her distress.
As a blogger who comments particularly on the science behind the debate she stands or falls on the accuracy of that science. If anyone was misled into thinking she endorsed the GR view then that person may well have further doubts about her validity. I hesitate to speculate as to whether or not that might be one of the reasons JB did it of course.
Secondly, there is an issue here of implicit control. An ugly image is called to my mind of a rich businessman laughing uncontrollably at the image of a less affluent woman as he dangles her on puppet strings. Fanciful? Yes. Exaggerated? No doubt. Based in some element of truth? I’m afraid I think it is.
Thirdly, again, lets look at the GR message and think about why those who are autistic particularly might not want to be associated with it. They believe GR is wrong. Further though, they see GR reducing who they are to a set of mercury related symptoms. Lets not forget that GR believe that autism is *only* mercury poisoning.
Once upon a time (in fact less than 40 years ago) psychologists ‘knew’ that homosexuality was *only* an illness that could be ‘cured’. How do you think that – at the time – that made gay people feel? Imagine a blogging community of parents desperate cure their gay adolescents (who ‘know’ that their children are just ill) – would gay adults be horribly offended and fight back? Or would they sit on their hands and do nothing?
For us parents, the outcome of this debate is very important – our kids depend upon it. For those people who are autistic, the outcome of this debate is absolutely crucial. Their continued survival depends upon it. I ask you once more: in an area of such vital importance, is the method really unimportant when the method denigrates so much? Is it something to be brushed aside as we smile indulgently at its instigator when its tantamount to an attempt to control a debate that affects peoples very right to exist?
Is this message so right that such a total lack of respect for a differing view is at best readily embraced and at worst tolerated in the way we would tolerate a favourite but slightly spoiled child?
Left Brain Right Brain 
Sorry Sue, my question isn’t whether mice can represent human disease, do you think THOSE mice represent autistic children? I’m not asking for perfection, are they even close?
NOD mice aren’t a perfect model for IDDM but they serve the purpose. Are SJL/L mice a good model for autism, or more to your point, children susceptible to autism?
Not to change the subject but what are the autism rates in China?
Sue M. When there exists a major flaw in the reasoning behind a set of experiments, the results are flawed no matter how appealing they seem. Hornig could have performed a set of experiments that was above the criticisms leveled at it by people on this site and elsewhere, but she didn’t. 2 words: excretion kinetics. That failure negates her study. It’s too bad, because it might have been interesting.
Regarding Burbacher (it’s not in front of me so I’m thinking back now), and disregarding the major criticisms, let me perseverate on one aspect: why were other organs not analyzed? I mean, you kill the monkey so why not use the heart, spinal cord, liver, or stomach? It almost seems like a particular answer was desired and so the key experiments that they felt would support the hypothesis were completed and those that may have been problematic were avoided.
Camille, you mentioned that that Burbacher’s study was “useless” to our contention that mercury is a causal factor. Not so.
By proving that ethyl-mercury gets into the brain after pediatric vaccines are injected…and then converts to inorganic mercury… and getting trapped in the brain… it doesn’t MATTER if Burbacher doesn’t therefore conclude that “mercury causes autism.” That was never the point.
That said, what the hell do you think is going to happen to brain cells that come into contact with mercury?
I’m sure that will be the subject of follow-up studies. When that happens, I’ll post interviews on that as well.
Definitely not useless. It’s a step in our direction.
EN: “it doesn’t MATTER if Burbacher doesn’t therefore conclude that “mercury causes autism.†That was never the point.”
This is a serious shift from EVERYthing we’ve heard from GR up to now!
Erik, please describe to us the figure in the paper which describes either the administration or assaying of ethyl-mercury.
Hint: This vs. that
I guess I’ll just have to wait for the interview.
Just a quck question though, since I find it interesting that you apparently value interviews over accepted science. Do you ever interview someone who doesn’t actively subscribe to the GR theory?
If not, is it because you don’t want to, or because they don’t want you to?
If we’re parading autistic mice, there are lots of autistic mice out there you know:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15749253&query_hl=1
I only looked this up because someone told me about Thalidomide and autism, which are linked with administration of Thalidomide between 20-24 weeks gestation.
It’s not just that the Mercury-autism hypothesis is not borne out by stuides; it’s also that advocates of it seem to be closing down all other lines of investigation.
from M’s posted link site…
“In vitro studies …. , whereas exogenously added Sonic hedgehog, a morphogen that has been implicated in serotonergic cell fate, partially prevented this retardation. These results indicate that disruption of early serotonergic neuronal development might be involved in the etiology of autism.”
Sonic fucking hedgehog?????????
This is scientists fucking about with mice and they have a morphogen called Sonic fucking hedgehog???
Help!
BC: “It almost seems like a particular answer was desired and so the key experiments that they felt would support the hypothesis were completed and those that may have been problematic were avoided.”
This is the reason why proper science does not seek to prove an hypothesis but tests the null hypothesis. Quite frankly, doing anything else is not participating in science.
bonni said: “Oh, and for the record. one of the things I looked up was the use of thimerisol in various countries and guess what? It’s not used in Australia and hasn’t been for years. My child was never “slammed†with it in an early developmental phase.”
Bonni, thimerosal is not the only form of mercury exposure to developing fetuses. Have you any dental amalgams? Ten amalgams is enough for you to inhale the equivalent of two flu shots worth of mercury every day. Did you eat canned tuna? Or other high-risk seafood? Have you considered having yourself tested for high mercury?
What am I saying, of course you won’t.
Bartholomew…read Burbacher’s study for yourself. It’s an easy find. I’m not here to do your homework.
Erik, it’s sitting in front of me. I’ve read it several times. It has nothing to do with Ethyl-mercury. I’ve done my homework but teacher is going to have to give you a frownie face for your effort.
Pong is no fun when someone keeps purposefully hitting it out the side.
For those viewers at home – simply because someone cites a reference doesn’t mean they either read it or understand it.
David re: sonic hedgehog. If you look at the history of the discovery of these master genes and take into account that graduate students and postdocs did all the work, then it really comes as no surprise that silly names pop up.
On the other hand, Charles Radding discovered the genes involved in DNA repair which he named Rad, because they involve radiation senitivity, not Radding. Right.
Erik said: That said, what the hell do you think is going to happen to brain cells that come into contact with mercury?
In a petri dish, neuron will wither and die, at least in the Calgary (was it?) video. That’s at neurotoxic concentrations which are never achieved in the brains of humans exposed to thimerosal in vaccines. Thanks to Burbacher for demonstrating that in his primates. You do know that there are many different types of brain cells, right Erik? At very low levels, such as post-vaccine levels, mercury forms a bond with sulfur in glutathione and it is safely sequestered, chelated if you want, within microglial cells until it can be transported and excreted. At these concentrations it isn’t killing any brain cells upon contact and especially not the microglia in charge of it’s removal. Didn’t you get the memo? The mercury camp is slowly shifting away from direct neurotoxicity because it can’t happen at those levels. Try to remember that the mere presence of mercury (known neurotoxin, second most.., blah, blah, blah) in the brain doesn’t equate to neuronal death. As I told you before, we all have mercury in our brains. Plutonium too.
thimerosal is not the only form of mercury exposure to developing fetuses. Have you any dental amalgams? Ten amalgams is enough for you to inhale the equivalent of two flu shots worth of mercury every day. Did you eat canned tuna?
Of course it isn’t the only form of exposure. Do you want to claim that environmental sources cause autism or thimerosal causes autism? It can’t be both Erik. It can’t be one source in one country and another in the US either. Rates would be much different. Lean on Burbacher if you’d like but the message your friends are getting from his study is that ethyl-mercury from thimerosal is more toxic than methyl-mercury from fish. Did you miss that memo too? Want to say it’s environmental mercury? Fine, then it was never the vaccines.
M said: It’s not just that the Mercury-autism hypothesis is not borne out by stuides; it’s also that advocates of it seem to be closing down all other lines of investigation.
Passively and actively. Genetic epidemics are an impossibility
So Sue, do you still say that JB thinks genes play a role? I think he would rather see all other research come to halt. Unless of course it can be overinterpreted to support the mercury poisoning hypothesis.
Hi M:
Autistic mice are interesting, but I prefer autistic zebra fish
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=14606692&query_hl=2
J and M, I find animal models fascinating and quite useful in several ways, however it seems that their use is being stretched by some (no one here).
IMO, one useful way to use animals is to ID a mutation in a human that results in a disorder. Mutate the animal gene and watch the phenotype. Then play with drugs to try and assuage the phenotype severity.
Another way is to do a genetic screen and look for a particular phenotype. “my mouse looks autistic”. Then check the mutation and bounce it off humans with autism. btw, I can’t imagine doing a large screen with mice and I can’t imagine looking at nematodes and having an idea that one worm strain might represent autistic traits.
This post is really for the Rain Mouse apologists. Is it valid to ake a strain of organism X, expose them to compound Y and then try and draw conclusions about humans? I don’t think so.
Huh?
That looks like very bad comment spam.
Simpson’s foreshadowing::Helloween IV special, Flanders is Satan. “Last one you ever suspect.â€
Finally, a relevant comment!
LOL on “relevant comment”! And to think that Uncle Sam foreshadowed Sam Walton ~ “Savoir of the Pesant Class” !
… yes s/b Peasant …
Hey BC,
Yep, I agree with what you said.
I can’t supress a strong visual image of someone unsucessfully getting a zebra fish to make eye contact and writing at a furious pace how “this ones autistic for sure. “
BC: ” re: sonic hedgehog. If you look at the history of the discovery of these master genes and take into account that graduate students and postdocs did all the work, then it really comes as no surprise that silly names pop up.”
We’re buggered…. really, we’re buggered!
Ah well…
Ever heard of a test called K-FAST? K-BIT? WASI? WISC? To be honest, I have a seriously hard time believing that their names weren’t thought up first and the name thought up to fit the acronym ….
Scientists…. all mad…. all mad!
(Must confess to a little dark humour at this point… trying to see funny, but it isn’t easy at this juncture).
BC wrote:
“When there exists a major flaw in the reasoning behind a set of experiments, the results are flawed no matter how appealing they seem”.
– Can you talk to the CDC about that? They keep bringing up those bogus Denmark epidemiology studies?
-Sue M.
EN wrote:
“EN: “it doesn’t MATTER if Burbacher doesn’t therefore conclude that “mercury causes autism.†That was never the point.â€
Then David followed up with:
“This is a serious shift from EVERYthing we’ve heard from GR up to now”!
– How so, David? Show me where GR stated that one particular study in and by itself PROVES that mercury causes autism?
-Sue M.
Clone wrote:
“At very low levels, such as post-vaccine levels, mercury forms a bond with sulfur in glutathione and it is safely sequestered, chelated if you want, within microglial cells until it can be transported and excreted”.
-What about children who for whatever reason (genetic or otherwise) have a very low level of glutathione?
Clone wrote:
“So Sue, do you still say that JB thinks genes play a role”?
– Yes, I do. I certainly can’t speak for him and I imagine he might say that the genetic piece is a small part of the puzzle. Here is an example from his myth #1 on the GR website, it states:
“What is true is that certain children may have an impaired ability genetically to detoxify heavy metals from their systems. These children are more likely to be affected by mercury exposure”.
– For any more clarification on JB’s opinion on this, please refer to him. Yes, I do recognize that I brought up his name in regards to this in the beginning. My bad.
-Sue M.
Clone wrote:
“NOD mice aren’t a perfect model for IDDM but they serve the purpose. Are SJL/L mice a good model for autism, or more to your point, children susceptible to autism”?
– Obviously, research on autism when it comes to mice is by nature going to be more difficult than studies on type 1 diabetes and mice. Type 1 diabetes is a easily measurable medical condition. You either have type 1 diabetes or you don’t. You either take insulin or you die. It’s easy to measure. With autism and mice, you are going to have trouble measuring the condition. Is this mouse more severe than this mouse? Is this movement an “autistic” movement or not? So, it is different. I understand the issue. So, what is of interest to me is that from Hornig’s study she showed that one group of mice (autoimmune sensitive) mice acted significantly DIFFERENT than the other group of mice. That was her finding.
-Sue M.
Oops, I almost forgot.
Clone wrote:
“Not to change the subject but what are the autism rates in China”?
– I sort of feel like this might be a trap. So, let the record show that the Chinese embassy has not faxed me the latest autism numbers (or any numbers for that matter). I’m quite certain that you will take issue with the quote that I am sending you. I will encourage you to do what you can to research this further. Ask the government to take a look at the numbers and get back to you. Here it is:
“Autism has rarely been reported outside of industrialized countries, at least until recent years. A good example is China, where companies such as Merck and Glaxo-SmithKline have begun an aggressive pediatric marketing campaign, selling millions of dollars in vaccines to the Communist Government, including pediatric hepatitis B, DTP, HiB, MMR and others. On August 11, 2004, the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, reported that children suffering with autism in that country had suddenly and unexpectedly skyrocketed. In a few short years, the number of reported cases jumped from nearly nothing to some 1.8 million children in 2004. One researcher “estimated that the number of Chinese children with autism was growing at an annual rate of 20 percent, even higher than the world average of 14 percent,” the news agency reported. Other increases in autism cases are currently being reported in such far-flung countries as Indonesia, Argentina, India and Nigeria. If thimerosal is one day proven to be a contributing factor to autism, and if U.S.-made vaccines containing the preservative are now being supplied to infants the world over, the scope of this potential tragedy becomes almost unthinkable.”
– David Kirby, contributing writer to the New York Times, author of Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and The Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy
Does one have to set different traps for autistic mice? I ask this as we have a lot of them. I mean, is it that the ‘neurotypical’ mouse sees only the cheese and goes into the trap, and the autistic mouse sees the greater detail (ie killing slicing thing) and avoids the trap?
Oh, and I checked Xinhua’s website:
http://search.xinhuanet.com/search/xhse.jsp?sw=autism
That report that SueM mentioned doesn’t come up. This could of course be a translation vagary.
However, this story:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-11/22/content_3818836.htm
Mentions a school for adolescents with autism, which seems to be out of line with the timescale mentioned by SueM.
I mention this conversationally; I don’t really trust official mouthpieces of totalitarian regimes one way or the other!
Sue M. Wrote: So, what is of interest to me is that from Hornig’s study she showed that one group of mice (autoimmune sensitive) mice acted significantly DIFFERENT than the other group of mice.
But, did they act differently than the group of SJL with autoimmunity induced by other agents? Or the group that received thimerosal free vaccines? SJL mice are very prone to autoimmune disorders, mercury sensitive, and they don’t need a very big push to put them over the edge. If they represent a group of “autoimmune sensitive” children, thimerosal would be the least of their problems. Aside from mercury, have you any idea how many triggers will cause SJL mice to develop autoimmunity including neurological disorders? If children with autism are that genetically susceptible then we better focus all available resources on autism genes.
-What about children who for whatever reason (genetic or otherwise) have a very low level of glutathione?
Well since we are only talking about a few micrograms of mercury, it doesn’t require very much glutathione to conjugate mercury. An individual with a genetic glutathione deficiency should have more than enough to sequester the trace mercury that make it into the brain following vaccination. If not, thimerosal is the least of their problems. J. James didn’t find a genetic deficiency or an inability to synthesize glutathione.
I feel like the message is geting a bit lost here.
The genetic component referred to on the GR website is not associated with autism but associated with an inability to excrete mercury. It should be noted that this is a) pure conjecture and b) not the same thing as being linked to autism.
The proof still needs to be that mercury _causes_ autism. Not just indiscriminate neurodamage. If we look at other famous types of mercury poisoning (such as Pinks disease) there are no similarities whatsoever.
We also cannot forget that whilst the GR site makes glib mention of ‘mercury’ it makes heavy and repeated mention of thiomersal. It is obvious that thiomersal is the suspect according to GR. Just about every ‘hall of famer’ on the GR site has strong views regarding thiomersal/vaccines.
Almost 90% of the facts section of the GR site and over 60% of the mercury myths section refer explicitly to thiomersal.
For GR, thiomersal is the issue. Thats a misrepresentation of even the Biomed communities position.
Sue – its a valid question re: the fish but the type of fish caught off the East coast of Scotland are not the sort heavy in mercury.
Erik: I can’t help but note that you _agan_ seemed to have accidently missed answering my question about the valid science that Biomed resarchers have brough to the field about autism that doesn’t touch on mercury. I’m also very interested in hearing your thoughts on my point re Buttar/IV-EDTA.
“Other increases in autism cases are currently being reported in such far-flung countries as Indonesia, Argentina, India and Nigeria.”
Buenos Aires Herald has a story on a centre for people with autism who are 15-27, but nothing comes up on a search which is a ‘huge rise in autism’ piece that I can see:
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/search/index.jsp
(‘Treating mental disabilities one step at a time’ is the one on young adults with autism)
The Times of India similarly has no mention of a rise in autism.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1293535.cms
Mentions that the Academy for Severe Handicaps and Autism in India is over a decade old.
I wasn’t able to find a good searchable online news source for Nigeria or Indonesia.
Although this was apparently in the Observer last month. w00t!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1641133,00.html
“‘These parents are grieving, but this grief does not stem from the child’s autism,’ he pronounces. ‘It is a grief over the loss of the normal child the parents had hoped and expected to have. But this grief over a fantasised normal child needs to be separated from the parents’ perceptions of the child they do have: the autistic child who needs the support of adult care-takers and who can form very meaningful relationships with those care-takers if given the opportunity. Continuing focus on the child’s autism as a source of grief is damaging for both parents and the child.'”
(comment spamming here)
Re: fish and mercury. Ok, looked up about where the mercury comes from:
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fsrio/topics/tpmercury.htm
So, it comes from naturally occuring sources? So there has always been mercury in fish (varying on the fish)? (If this supposition is wrong, ignore rest of comment)
Brace yourselves for a mini-history lecture.
The medieval church was very big on fasting. For more than 50% of the year meat was officially banned from the diet. Fish was substituted; the medieval diet of the middle and upper classes had huge amounts more fish in it than current diets. With all that fishy mercury, where were all the medieval people with autism?
M: I have a project for you. Go to the very first link that you sent to me above. Then click on the two top articles from that page. Read them carefully. Can you tell me why I might say that you are proving my point about the autism rates in China?… Anyone feel free to join in. Hello people. Really, I would love any feedback. No, really.
-Sue M.
The early church/fish/merucry
Catholics still spend do meatless fridays during Lent in the spring time. Fatholics can eat fish on such days though.
Michigan Catholics were allowed to eat muskrat on fridays (who knows the logic for that one).
I was given the chance to indulge in that…..delicacy, but couldn’t bear to take the plunge.
I wonder if muskrat has a high mercury content, should we let the archbishop of Detroit know?
“Fatholics”
Ahhhh, spelling…….Catholics
That’s the one I meant.
“Orac is a jack-ass. A doctor who call other doctors quacks.”
Y’know, I’m surprised nobody called JB on this.
I assume, based on how he wrote that, that he feels that Orac is a jackass because Orac is a doctor who calls other doctors quacks.
That … worries me.
Does JB think there are no quack doctors?
Or does he think it’s rude to call a quack a quack?
Or is it that he doesn’t think a doctor is one of the best people to determine if another doctor’s a quack or not?
Or (My personal suspicion) is it just that he thinks it’s rude to call the doctors HE likes quacks, irrespective of how ducklike they may be?
Sue M. said, “I have a project for you. Go to the very first link that you sent to me above. Then click on the two top articles from that page. Read them carefully. Can you tell me why I might say that you are proving my point about the autism rates in China?… Anyone feel free to join in. Hello people. Really, I would love any feedback. No, really.”
Ok, I love projects. From article number 1: “Flat Chested Beauties”, Tom, Katie cause chaos in ancient China town, and Trial of Saddam postponed to Dec. 5″
What was your point again Sue M?
From article number 2: “Japanese princess turns 4 years old, Britney Spears ends up feud with Christina Aguilera, Manchester United pays tribute to late George Best”
PS – for those of us with low desire to click the links I’ll let you in on the secret: the articles say nothing about the rates of autism in China.
There’s a black van parked on the street outside my window – do you think they’re listening to me right now? Sue, what station should I listen to for scrambling their signal?
Go Arsenal.
Bartholomew, just line your room with copper windowscreen to turn into into a giant Faraday cage, wear your tinfoil beanie and then you’ll be safe.
I’m still trying to figure out how mice can be “autistic”.
(Cats, maybe, http://www.spacehost.us/~aliki/autism/autiecats.html )
Then again, when the young male regal fritillary butterflies eclose from their pupae and start chasing swallowtail butterflies or even dragonflies, does that mean they have some kind of sexual disorder (DSM NOS 302.9)? Personally, I think they’re just young, confused, full of hormones and refining their search images; as they get older they only chase other regal fritillaries.
Even butterflies can learn, and they have very, very small brains.
Really, assigning human pyschological “disorders” to other animals is silly.
andrea
P.S. The above comments about tinfoil beanies and cats are meant to be jokes.
andrea
Hi, yes, is this the Danish Epidemiology Science Center?
Yes, well, good. This is Julie Gerberding. I really need Anders Hviid to make a trip to China ASAP. We really could use some help over there. Yes, the sooner the better.
Denial it ain’t just a river in Africa…
-Sue M.
p.s. Ms. Clark — deep breathe… in and out, in and out.
Sotek said:
_“Orac is a jack-ass. A doctor who call other doctors quacks.â€
Y’know, I’m surprised nobody called JB on this.
I assume, based on how he wrote that, that he feels that Orac is a jackass because Orac is a doctor who calls other doctors quacks.
That … worries me.
Does JB think there are no quack doctors?
Or does he think it’s rude to call a quack a quack?
Or is it that he doesn’t think a doctor is one of the best people to determine if another doctor’s a quack or not?
Or (My personal suspicion) is it just that he thinks it’s rude to call the doctors HE likes quacks, irrespective of how ducklike they may be?_
I thought about, but I had other things to do than point out the attacking Orac instead of debating the substance of what Orac wrote was pure ad hominem, and did not exactly add anything to the dialog.
Plus I got absolutely no reaction on another subject here when I tried to reiterate that Buttar (the man with the cure for cancer, aging and autism!) is a quack. I even posted this list of formally qualified doctors who have been disciplined: http://www.casewatch.org/board/med/boardindex.shtml … I got nary a whisper. (by the way, I hope to see Roy Kerry and Rashid Buttar added to that list… oh, and the reason it does not include Kevin Trudeau and Hulda Clark is because they were never real doctors, but they are listed elsewhere on that site).
I think from your list of possibilities, the last one seems more feasable.
The Healthfraud listserv is full of doctors (and nurses, physical therapists, chiropractors, dentists, engineers, and others) who regularly call other doctors quacks… They also call selected nurses, therapists, dentists, chiropractors, homeopaths, etc quacks… If he saw what went on there he might blow a fuse.
Thanks for the link to the Shanghai story.
Shanghai is suffering from a devastating rate of hmmmm.
1 in 911. There’s no indication that they are thinking this is a new rate. They just state that there are 10,000 in Shanghai, which has a population of 9,110,600.
No mention of vaccines. No mention of
Death to the Imperialist Dogs.
(sorry if this sounds offensive. I speak Mandarin, I have Chnese friends, it isn’t offensive to me.)
You’d think they’d have declared war on someone by now, Merck or Aventis Pasteur?
Now, please, please tell me, Sue, that you know that Singapore is an entirely different country from either China or Taiwan (also China).
They used the 60 in 10,000 rate to calculate the approximate number of autistics in all of Singapore, the autistics are of all ages, they are not just children, which point is made quite clear in the article.
We don’t know anything about the mercury exposure in Singapore. It doesn’t matter, because mercury does not cause autism.
60 in 10,000 is the estimated rate world wide.
It is the high and stable rate referred to by Dr. Fombonne. Sorry. That’s what it’s been for ages, no vast increase.
Game over…
only I realize that the mercury parents never learn and we’ll all be here explaining this over and over forever and ever….
aaaaagh.
Actually, SueM…. just been loking at the “myths” list on the GR website….
The first one flatly denies of any empirically-supported genetics-based evidence in autism research. Myth 8 also represents an assumption that *all* autism is Hg-poisoning. A lot of space is taken up with an argument which quite frankly bears up nothing (concerning the lack of scientific evidence to support that the mercury-based preservative *causes* autism… which is countered by a lack of such evidence that the preservative is safe… as if a “touché” “argument” is enough to counter a serious claim of lack of science to support that ‘connection’).
The autism myths part of the GR site makes claims that could only be based on the assumption that the “studies” they like to cite most often do in fact prove the link between Hg and autism.
There has been a shift in the publicly-presented thinking in GR since those scientists basically told GR to “fuck right off”.
MsC: “I speak Mandarin”
My daughter, who is autistic and has never been chelated (and who will, as long as I have breath in my body, will *never’ be chelated), has been through an interesting set of learning stages:
She taught herself how to use the computer, and from there, she learned how to use the internet; she then used the net to learn English (her mother-tongue is Finnish), after which she set about looking at sites where she learned lots of little bits of Spanish and Mandarin Chinese… which she has attempted recently to teach me!
Is this evidence for mercury poisoning? I don’t think so… Is it evidence of a self-directed and internally-motivated learner (for whom state school will no doubt bring serious aggravation, since schools favour conformity over individuality)? Very much so, yes.
What’s with this replication with the mice at your uni? Seems a bit fucked up, doesn’t it? If your prediction turns up in the results, do you reckon that all of a sudden, the GR lot will end up saying that:
a) all autism is mercury poisoning?
b) all peripheral neuropathy is mercury poisoning?
c) all autism is peripheral neuropathy?
d) all of the above?
Do let us all know what they come up with…. 😉
Orrabess, hen.
David
MsC: “… only I realize that the mercury parents never learn and we’ll all be here explaining this over and over forever and ever… ”
Sadly.
I wish I was getting paid for all this I put in here. I’d have my own private jet…. wee runway in the yaird there, flights tae Bridlington… see my dad every day efter work, quality time before he dies.
He is (as my ex has oft said) “your basic Aspie grandad”, and has developed of late peripheral neuropathy, and is now basically riddled with cancer. I get the impression that GR types will probably go off on one now saying that all of these things are just different ways of reacting to having been poisoned by mercury and that, if we’d had him chelated instead of him having the nephrectomy the other year, he’d be fully recovered from all the fucking lot.
What say you, MsC? You as unconvinced by their bollocks as much as I am?
I suspect (based on our interactions elsewhere) that we would be in serious agreement….
Hi David,
Yeah, I wish you could have that private jet, and you could get it if somoone paid you by the word, me too.
My impression is that your daughter must be about twice as intelligent as I am, because although Mandarin is challenging, it’s about 1 tenth as difficulat as Finnish, and English not easy (anyone wanna give an “amen” to the fact that the spelling is horrendous?) 🙂
I konw your little girl is treasure and not at all mercury toxic, same for you, same for your dad.
I have the name of the guy who is doing the replication of the Hornig mouse study. I’ll see if he’ll respond to an email… maybe I can visit his wee mousies and commiserate with them for their needless torture.
As for what actions Hornig (mom of an autistic child…) was looking for in the mice, one of them was some sort of clumsiness. She didn’t find any (see her reference to the rotarod test in her silly paper). She found fewer “stereotypical behaviors”.
Ahuh. Sue M. are your reading this? Fewer stereotypical behaviors in her mercury sensitive mice chronically overdosed with thimerosal. Fewer than the stereotypical behaviors in her normal control mice.
David Kirby has the gall, the unmitigated gall, to say the she wasn’t looking for autistic behavior. She was absolutely looking for atuistic behavior, though she should have been measuring their response to Babylon 5 and Deep Sapce 9 reruns and their desire to learn foreign languages like, uh, “Persian”, very helpful to know when dealing with cats.
She should have watched to see if they learned to read with great ease or had great difficulty with reading and should have noted whether or not they recited lines from Monty Python and collected train schedules.
She should have carefully measured pure sincerity of motive and depth of honesty, and counted the times they were bullied mercilessly.
Extra points for swaying mice with big heads and those who flap their paws.
But then Mady Hornig doesn’t know real autism. She’s a mercury mom, through and through, as is seen in the book “Evidence of Smarm”.
Clone wrote:
“Well since we are only talking about a few micrograms of mercury, it doesn’t require very much glutathione to conjugate mercury”.
– A comment like this is somewhat disturbing, Clone. Let’s go back to the beginning of the 1990’s. In their first 6 months of life newborn babies were shot up with 187.5 micrograms of ethlymercury. Taking into account any prenatal exposure via amalgams, fish eating, flu shots, rhogam, etc. Also, taking into account a premature infant or an immune-system compromised baby (would you know this about an infant on day 1 of life)? Never mind a baby who happens to get the bottom of the unshaken vial… It makes no sense for you to casually throw out a comment such as “we’re only talking about a few micrograms of mercury”.
-Sue M.
Ms. Clark wrote:
“Game over…”
– Obviously, you are joking here. Good one.
Ms. Clark wrote:
“maybe I can visit his wee mousies and commiserate with them for their needless torture”.
– Yes, you go take care of those poor wee mousies. I’ll worry about the children. Don’t you be bothered.
Ms. Clark wrote:
“I have the name of the guy who is doing the replication of the Hornig mouse study.”
– Please let us know if he returns your e-mail. If he does and he talks to you and you start giving him your thoughts, it may just disqualify him as a reliable researcher.
Ms. Clark wrote:
” Now, please, please tell me, Sue, that you know that Singapore is an entirely different country from either China or Taiwan (also China)”.
– All I did was take a link that M had sent and took a look at the first two liks from that site and made a quick comment on it… I really don’t care where Singapore is… I don’t even speak any other languages other than English and a bit of Spanish. Feeling pretty dumb here.
-Sue M.
Sorry Sue, I didn’t mean to disturb you.
I know it sounds like a lot, 187.5 is a big number after all, but if you had that much elemental mercury in the palm of your hand, it wouldn’t look like very much at all, assuming you could see it.
So how much of that 187.5 micrograms ends up in the brain? My point was that it doesn’t require grams of glutathione to complex micrograms of mercury. You asked how a glutathione deficiency would impact the ability to sequester mercury atoms within microglial cells, or something like that. Am I right?
So while we are on the subject of unshaken vials, you are assuming that mercury as a heavy metal will settle to the bottom. Thimerosal is a water soluble salt though and should remain fairly homogenous in solution. Unless, of course, there is degradation to inorganic mercury in the vial as it react with various substances in which case less would be available to cross the BBB. Maybe Burbacher shouldn’t have added fresh thimerosal to the thimerosal free vaccines in his primate study.
For the record, I haven’t injected any babies with 187.5 micrograms of mercury in the early 1990’s and I’m not sure why you find my comment so disturbing. If it’s untrue then tell me why but don’t over interpret my words.
Sue M. said, “In their first 6 months of life newborn babies were shot up with 187.5 micrograms of ethlymercury.”
If someone keeps saying that thimerosal is chocolate will that become fact too?
thimerosal != ethylmercury
Absolutism, it’s the new fad.